Learn more at http://www.xerox.com/innovation/enus.html
Former Xerox CEO and President Joe Wilson's employee orientation talk in the 1960s was an inspirational speech about the corporate culture, innovation, creativity and technological proficiency that is expected from Xerox employees, preserving the high standards that keep Xerox's impeccable reputation worldwide today.

A true entrepreneur

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The Prasena Story in slides and pictures (story telling of a true entrepreneur story which began in Geneva and brought me to Bangkok, a story of success and failures and going through the motions


The Prasena story – ups and downs to create a start up in Asia with a global focus

Storytelling: Insights from a real life sample of building up a new consulting company in Asia from first ideas to implementation and from failure to success. Prasena was fast awarded through the Fast Company (Seth Godin) but went through all the cycles of a start up (success to failures). We will look at strategic, financial (basic) and HR issues concerning the building of a new company. We will as well look at the tools we invented to re-invent consulting and the problematic of spearheading a new way of doing things.

Selftest: Find Out what entrepreneur personality you are from the Palgrave online test, compare with your classmate(s) on the result and discuss if it somehow results in a relevant result, write then together a mail to me at l.ritzel@imi-luzern.com where you describe your results as well the comparison with your classmate


This exercise could not be simpler:
  • it will only take about ten minutes
  • there are no right or wrong answers
  • it will help you to gain a better understanding of yourself.
You will find a list of 54 different statements. You are merely required to agree or disagree with the statements that have been made.
If, for any reason, you neither fully agree nor fully disagree with a particular statement, please try to decide whether you agree with it more or disagree with it more and circle the appropriate answer.
Be honest when answering the questions. The greater the accuracy of your answers the more precise the test.

Add your result summary, your own opinion and what came up when talking to your classmate to your own wikipage (my_first_name )

Talent management: Think as well additional talents which you think would help you to become a successful entrepreneur as well as what you think may be less supportive for you to be a successful entrepreneur and add your ideas on this to your wikipage

Research the web and find 1 or 2 relevant websites which you think are of interest for any upcoming entrepreneur, search some of them, compare them and summarize in your wiki why you think this page might be relevant for you being an entrepreneur

Picture Search: use Bing the new MS SearchEngine's picture search tool and search the term: Entrepreneur . Scroll through the results and then link the one you think is most relevant from your wikipage together with your own comments why you have chosen that specific picture http://www.bing.com/images?FORM=Z9FD

Homework:
Shoot your own entrepreneur picture with your own camera, ensure that you optimize the size for the web and then upload it to your wikipage. Of course explain in your own words on how it reflects your very own personal ENTREPRENEUR viewpoint


Classwork ongoing
Create a blog with wordpress.com or any other blogging apps which you may know better (can as well be a french one). See what i have done at http://lritzel.wordpress.com/ and then your work now is to create a much better blog and promote your own business idea to angel investors.The page must be speaking for itself and must be creative and enhance your unique selling points on why your specific business idea must be the successful. There should be some visuals to support the message (your pictures)
There could be either a own movie/ interview done with your mobile phone and uploaded to youtube and then embedded to your blog or if you dont like vdos make it a prezi show.
You could as well add on more web2 components like a twitter, or a facebook fanpage but this time NOT to market your site but to add content or relevance and impress the angel investor.

At the end it could get a look and feel like what fastcompany has done sample
http://www.fastcompany.com/100/2009/shai-agassi


Additionally
As a preWork to the course you should have read http://trendwatching.com and prepare one story, which impressed you and which you think it could be implemented to their own furture business.
Add your selected trend to your own wikipage and indicate why you have chosen this specific one and where it relates to your own business idea

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Next Practice not best practice

First make some research on what is best practice all about, add your personal understanding on what is best practise onto your wikipage



watch for example this funny movie which explains the best practices for teaching in a vdo environment

Based on Hermann Scherers latest book Jenseits vom Mittelmass we then look at his world of :
Next Practise (be fun, be unique, break pricing rules, make yourself exclusive, story telling, apply current trends, revive old traditions, individualize, special locations)

H Scherer was in the media since he was the first to bring Bill Clinton to Germany after he was no more presidents (see media pdf in research folder)

See on how you can apply those practices to your own business idea, best work in a group of 2-3 and discuss together on which of your business proposals could benefit most from some of those practices and where you would see it more problematic or none relevant. Discuss as well on best practices for each of your proposals and see what the others in your group may want to share with you.
Add all your individual research from this discussion to your own wikipage (summary) and to your blog (choose 2-3 next practices and apply them in more detail to your business proposal )

Watch a movie about ballooning as a metaphor on finding motivation in something which first seems impossible




Build and define together 5 criterias you think we should apply to grade each ones presentation, work in 3 groups. Find out what do you think is measurable in a entrepreneur presentation and devide the good from the bad. Find 5 criterias and for each criteria a written scale from 0 – 10. Send your ideas to my email at l.ritzel@imi-luzern.com


Watch the movie on naked pizza at http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/index.html and then in groups of 2-3 discuss on how they have implemented some of the practices we discussed yesterday. Add your research to your wikipage

Watch the movie from Fable Vision and then watch the story behind it here




If you did not yet do, run the personality test and compare with your classmate (groups of 2-3 ) and then post your feelings, thoughts on relevance and importance to your research page

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Prasena Compentencies Management to HR tool to build the dream team:

Run slides on Competenices as a very important tool for any company to succeed, much too much talk about responsibilities instead of looking at potential and hidden talents within your organization, start up or company to be (furture project)

Excercise come up with the core 5 competenices which you think your team must cover to be successfull for your entrepreneurial idea and add it to your wikipage
Later compare to the generic competenices dictionaries from the download link on the research wiki page
http://entrepreneur-ggsb.wikispaces.com/Research+Links check for more 3 competenices which you see in the generic dict which you may consider important and you have so far missed

Sidestory: Show Second Life and discuss a bit on what you can do to simulate your business ideas in SL. Fashion Shows,
If you are more interested in virtual Entrepreneurship check the blog and book about this theme at
http://entrepreneursguidetosecondlife.blogspot.com/

See as well the vote on SL entrepreneur from 2009 (SF Design - Swaffette Firefly)
http://www.slentre.com/category/sl-entrepreneur-profiles/
their blog at http://sfd-secondlife.blogspot.com/ (Avatar clothing)
their SLURL is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Penryn/69/81/36


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Look at the blue Ocean strategy by Chan Kin. Specifically we look at Cirque du Soleil as a sample of a Blue Ocean success story

to understand the blue oceans you first must look at Michael Porters bloody Red Oceans strategy



An Interview with Michael E. Porter, Professor, Harvard University. Porter's five competitive forces is the basis for much of modern business strategy. Understand the framework and how to put it into practice. read yourself more about Porters 5 competitive forces http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml


Listen to the incredible success story of a former fire eater and now space travellor Guy Laliberte



The metaphor of red and blue oceans describes the market universe.

Red Oceans are all the industries in existence today—the known market space. In the red oceans, industry boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known. Here companies try to outperform their rivals to grab a greater share of product or service demand. As the market space gets crowded, prospects for profits and growth are reduced. Products become commodities or niche, and cutthroat competition turns the ocean bloody. Hence, the term red oceans.

Blue oceans, in contrast, denote all the industries not in existence today—the unknown market space, untainted by competition. In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid. In blue oceans, competition is irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be set. Blue ocean is an analogy to describe the wider, deeper potential of market space that is not yet explored.

Slides on the basics of the Blue Ocean strategy and in specifics the sample of Cirque du Soleil



Class exercise: Build a team of 4-5 and research the Blue Ocean strategy of following companies:

NetJet, Body Shop, Starbucks, eBay, Nintendo Wii, Ikea, Fedex, CNN later individually add on the blue ocean ideas to your wiki page


Watch a Blue Ocean Player at work - Dell



Taken from Wikipedia: Criticisms

While Kim and Mauborgne propose approaches to finding uncontested market space, at the present there are few if any success stories of companies that applied their theories. This hole in their data persists despite the publication of Value Innovation concepts since 1997. A critical question is whether this book and its related ideas are descriptive rather than prescriptive. The authors present many examples of successful innovations, and then explain from their Blue Ocean perspective - essentially interpreting success through their lenses.
The research process followed by the authors has been criticized on several grounds. Criticisms include claims that no control group was used, that there is no way to know how many companies using a Blue Ocean Strategy failed and the theory is thus unfalsifiable, that a deductive process was not followed, and that the examples in the book were selected to "tell a winning story."
A whole chapter of the book explaining what the authors call "Tipping Point Leadership" is based on a conclusion that the drop in crime in New York city was caused by a change in policies, actions, and leadership. However, according to the book Freakonomics, crime rates dropped due to an increase in abortion rates several years earlier. Crime rates fell simultaneously in cities other than New York that had not applied what the authors call Tipping Point Leadership.
Brand and communication are taken for granted and do not represent a key for success. Kim and Maubourgne take the marketing of a value innovation as a given, assuming the marketing success will come as a matter of course.
It is argued that rather than a theory, Blue Ocean Strategy is an extremely successful attempt to brand a set of already existing concepts and frameworks with a highly "sticky" idea. The blue ocean/red ocean analogy is a powerful and memorable metaphor, which is responsible for its popularity. This metaphor can be powerful enough to stimulate people to action. However, the concepts behind the Blue Ocean Strategy (such as the competing factors, the consumer cycle, non-customers, etc.) are not new. Many of these tools are also used by Six Sigma practitioners and proposed by other management theorists.